• From: Denver, CO
  • Registered: 2005-03-27
  • Posts: 3,578

Topic: Starmada X - Ship modifier question

John Lerchey wrote:

> I just recently purchased Starmada X in PDF format.  I am
> *really* impressed with this game, and am hopeful that it
> will play as well as it reads.

Oh, it will... smile

> Anyway, one of my friends is scratch building some ships that are...
> light.  They are structured kind of like the Eagle from Space 1999.
> Basically strut-based framework with a few modules like
> engine pods and gun turrets tacked on.
>
> What I'm wondering is if anyone has ideas on designing ships
> that are large, volume-wise, and thus can carry significant
> amounts of stuff (normal SU), but are ... well... fragile. 
> What I'm wondering is if there is something that would allow
> you to reduce the amount of actual Hull boxes while retaining
> the Su, or something that makes the ship suffer extra hull
> damage whenever hits are taken.

The first thing that comes to mind is to up the tech levels so that you can fit more 'stuff' in a smaller frame.

But I've never really considered the possibility of 'fragile' ships -- perhaps that can be a disadvantage that is purchased during construction... hmm...

Maybe the reverse of armor plating; each time hull damage is suffered, roll a die. If the result is a 1 or 2, then an additional hull point is taken as further damage.

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com

mj12games's Website

  • Registered: 2005-04-03
  • Posts: 68

Re: Starmada X - Ship modifier question

cricket wrote:

Maybe the reverse of armor plating; each time hull damage is suffered, roll a die. If the result is a 1 or 2, then an additional hull point is taken as further damage.

That's what I did as an option in my heavily modified VBAM/SX spreadsheet I am using in the Solar Federation campaign. I called it "Weakened Hull Plating" or something to that effect. It works as you described above, and returns a percentage of SUs comparable to what Armor Plating usually takes away.

So far it has not been used too much, though in the testing I did it made it viable for the very primitive low tech powers (my TL -3 guys) to build actual starships. Otherwise they were having a hard time building anything worthwhile.

-Tyrel